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A year ago, I was on one of my lockdown escapades on my mountain bike with a friend. We rode south of Sitapaila to Ramkot. 

Heading west from the Sitapaila Chowk, we pedaled past a jumble of roadside houses, shops, teahouses, and housing complexes—the quotidian urban chaos. It surprised us to see the Sitapaila shrine with an appealing facade. We stopped to take some pictures. 

A few years back, Sitapaila (‘Sita’s footprints’), a massive boulder embedded with Goddess Sita’s footmarks, rested under a roadside tree—nondescript and unnoticed by passersby. It looked like Ma Sita got herself a befitting abode as a spacious compound bounded it, lined up with other deities.

As the last leg of the monsoon had dragged out a bit, the dirt road was boggy with endless puddles—nothing like we expected. We often got stuck in the mud, dismounted, and walked our bikes. We did not take a fall, though.

The traffic on the road receded. So did civilization. After Danda Pauwa bazaar, we found ourselves amidst dwindling habitation and farmland with young greens of rice and vegetables. The towering lush Nagarjun Raniban hills rose to a glorious height to our right—a sight for sore eyes.

After some half-hour, we arrived at Ramkot. Larger than Danda Pauwa, the town bore the trappings of a burgeoning city, advancing towards rapid urbanization; but at a high cost of greenery. I realized the village-town had lost massive virgin foliage and woods, which my eyes met a decade ago during a ride there. 

We stopped to rest at an intersection to regain our heaving breaths and sip water from our bottles. I spotted a tea shop, and we felt like having a cup. Next, I approached two gentlemen seated on a bench before us. 

“Namaste, we are a little confused regarding the two roads. Can you help us out?” I asked the older guy. He pointed towards the south and said, “That way due south goes to Switzerland Park, the other goes to Bhim Dunga.” Curious, he asked us how far we planned to go. Then followed a chat that proved fruitful.

As we sipped tea, the guy shed light on the folklore about Ramkot and Bhim Dunga. Ramkot, he said, got its name when Lord Ram, Sita, and Laxman, during their 12-year exile, spent some time there. During his sojourn, the legend goes, Ram built an armory there; thus the by-name Ramkot—kot for weapon store. 

As for Bhim Dunga, the gentleman explained, everyone misnames it as Bhim Dhunga (Bhim’s rock). “The actual name is Bhim Dunga, Dunga for a boat,” he said and recounted the ancient folklore.

“Myth has it one of the Pandav brothers, Bhimsen of Mahabharat fame in the days of Dwapara Yuga, once visited the Bhim Dunga ridge, which served as a ledge overhead a colossal lake, said to be the present Kathmandu Valley.”

Bhimsen, spellbound, wished to explore the waters. He sent for a boat and took a ride. The ridge that day on got the new name, Bhim Dunga—it’s not Dhunga, he summed up again. 

Ancient history too says Kathmandu was once a lake. Manjushri, a revered Bodhisattva endowed with tantric (occult) powers, struck with his scimitar between two hills at Chobhar to cause a breach to drain the water out; eventually, the lake turned into a verdant valley. We are familiar with the site today as Chobhar gorge. 

Bhim Dunga seemed to take our fancy as the elevation would allow us a bird's-eye view of the Kathmandu basin, once a lake. We thanked the gentlemen and headed uphill.

The ridge bore a large stone altar with three gajurs (pinnacles), giving the impression of a midget temple. The stonework included two deities. One was Ganesh, but I failed to place the other chiseled form, a little disfigured; it stood with one arm holding what looked like a Gada (mace). Well, that must be Bhimsen, I figured.

Wow! The elevation offered a 360-degree view of Kathmandu. Instinctively, it made us marvel at what a magnificent lake it must have been. Incredible. 

The grueling ride to Bhim Dunga turned out well worth our while. We struck home—happy and wiser.

We must understand the reasons Nepal could, for ages, maintain a relatively stable economy, be free from colonization or occupation by foreign invaders, and provide home to one of the happiest people on earth. Throughout history, we Nepali have been strongly driven by the concepts of karma and afterlife (though both seem less of a priority today). Survival assured, people are willing to live on half of what they deserve. We are afraid of a poor public image, readily embrace austerity and try to save fortunes for the future. We are highly driven by cultural values.

Nepali are nature worshipers. We worship almost all things in nature: living and nonliving, terrestrial and heavenly, visible and invisible, plants, animals and humans, soil, water, air, fire and space, relatives and strangers. We consider anything that disturbs nature as problems: climate change, global warming, biodiversity loss, pollution of soil, water and air, radiation hazards, ozone layer depletion, and nuclear threat. In the face of terrorism and ongoing regional and global conflicts, not surprisingly Nepal had proposed itself a Zone of Peace!

Nepal needs both economic and infrastructure build-up to start from inside, from grassroots. Large-scale and high-sounding projects are not our priority. We do not want to inundate our millennia-old river-bank settlements to erect reservoirs for hydroelectricity plants. Instead, an average Nepali would prefer covering barren mountains with solar plates or wind fans.

The major part of Nepali agriculture is still organic. Ironically, we advocate productivity at any cost and teach farmers to use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, green houses, as well as exotic, hybrid and genetically modified (GM) and suicide seeds. Each of these steps makes the locals lose their independence and resilience to adversity. They inflict devastating harms on the locals, their livelihood, ecosystem and traditional wisdom. Overuse and inappropriate application of chemical fertilizers has upset soil composition and degraded its productivity.

Pesticides have not only indiscriminately killed insects, weeds, fungi, pests and other useful natural enemies of the harmful ones, they also have become serious threats to human health. They are now associated with various types of cancers, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, organ failure and even sudden death. Seemingly attractive greenhouses have further damaged the environment. Imprudent adoption of exotic, hybrid and GM seeds has threatened our seed banks.

Throughout history, attached toilets were not our dream. Excreta was not tolerated in homes, or nearby water bodies or sacred places. However, the waste was commonly used as organic manure in the fields. After natural organic decomposition, the excreta mix and disappear into fertile soil. This fact was well understood by our ancestors. Human feces and urine formed a part of the healthy ecosystem. People benefitted from active toilet habits. Now we are encouraged to build modern, attached toilets, wasting our already scarce resources. The result is sedentary population, conflicts over dumping sites, as well as various other health and environmental hazards associated with improper waste disposal.

Rapid population growth has put extra pressure on arable land, housing, forest, open space, water and other natural resources. Population planning and maintenance of demographic balance should be a priority. However, our slogan ‘small family, happy family’ has been misinterpreted by many as ‘no to joint family’! The result is adults splitting up from their aging parents and aged grandparents, thus leaving the elderly at the mercy of the state and elderly-care centers.

Some people pay no heed to elderly in their families and localities but found or fund elderly care organizations elsewhere for publicity. Society needs to begin ridiculing such figures.

Our newly adopted education system that promotes materialist views oblivious of the spiritual, religious and moral aspects of development is no less responsible for social disintegration. Now each adult speaks of ‘I’ as ‘a free person’ with rights to choose a life ‘as I like’. With such stubborn views and attitudes, ‘we educated people’ have become feeling-less mechanistic living units, without any concern for the larger society. This has to change.

The biggest reason for our economic poverty is wrong land use. Nepal needs to learn from its own experience. Holding land as a fortune has many downsides. I do not propose snatching private land. But I do propose banning trade of land. Let us own no more land than what we can cultivate without hiring laborers or using mass production tools. Let us not own land or houses for rentals. Let us ensure skyscrapers are not blocking sunlight, or posing threat to bordering lands, houses or waters in case of fires or earthquakes. Such structures harm people both physically and mentally.

Let us begin anew. Let agricultural and settlement lands be fixed first. Let all rivers, streams and lakes and selected forests be declared sovereign—no government, no community, no person can remove them, destroy them, pollute them, cover them, or harm them. This will ensure clean air and environment. For industrial or other activities needing larger pieces of land, let the state or community rent land, hills, rivers, lakes or forests.

Let us fix land prices. Let the state buy all the land being sold, and sell it at the same price to those who need it, on a priority basis fixed by the local community. To the squatters, provide it for free but make it non-transferable and non-sellable, which the state can give to other people if the former tenants are no longer poor or cease to use land as required by the contract.

We also have other development needs. The above-mentioned steps will not only make our land more inhabitable and ensure better and healthy food supply. They will also save our precious resources and enable us work on other priority projects.

The author is a professor of pharmacy at Tribhuvan University

Becoming better versions of ourselves requires self-awareness. It asks of us to think about our daily choices and how those choices are compounding—either for better or for worse. Being purposeful means connecting our daily choices with our long-term vision of who we wish to be as individuals. So let’s say in the long run we want to be a person who cares for the environment. But if we’re using plastic bags daily, wasting water while brushing teeth in the morning or showering, using non-degradable products, are we being purposeful? 

Practicing being a person who cares for the environment would mean we would use cloth bags instead of plastic ones, use water mindfully, and choose biodegradable or eco-friendly products. Yes, we’d like others to follow our lead and live more eco-friendly lifestyles. But we also don’t want to be the kind of person who doesn’t want to understand other people’s choices and reasons for doing as they do.

We would like to grow into individuals who can listen and empathize and inspire others to become better. Being purposeful helps us take actions now, which will add value to the person we want to be in the long-term future while also enabling us to understand other people's long-term vision. Clarity around three concepts—goals, meaning and purpose—can help us be self-aware:

Goals are what we either do or wish to do in the days ahead. They include what we want to achieve in the short-term or long-term future. We create goals to get better in one or more areas in life like health, time management, academic performance, relationships, or professional development. Goals are specific, measurable, and attainable. An example of a ‘goal’ can be to become physically fit, which might require us to exercise every day for 30 minutes, eat home-cooked food three times a day, and sleep every day for eight hours.

Meaning is the reason behind our goals. It explains why we do what we do and why our ‘goals’ are important to us. Meaning gives the motivation to continue making choices that help us achieve our goals and shape us into the individuals we want to be. So let’s say if our goal is to be physically fit, ‘meaning’ can help us figure out ‘why’ we want to become so. It could either be that we want to build strong immunity, feel confident through physical fitness, become active, fight a medical condition, or lead a healthy lifestyle.

Purpose is the impact we wish to have on the people and world around us. Purpose means the bigger picture that we have in mind when making our day-to-day choices and connecting with the people in our lives. When we’re purposeful, it becomes a constant reminder for us to keep doing what we do and helps us connect with people who could benefit from our help. What can be the purpose if our goal is to become physically fit? Maybe it is to lead by example so that people around us also care about maintaining their physical health and benefit from leading healthy lifestyles.

While goals are more actionable, meaning and purpose guide us in terms of our thought process. Most of the time, we create goals, but we don’t know why (we can’t figure out the meaning behind our goals) or the impact we wish to have in the world (the purpose of our actions and choices). If we don’t think through the meaning and purpose of our daily choices, goals can’t be sustainable.

Goals, meaning and purpose also create a cycle. Our purpose guides us in creating goals. Our goals further help us become better in life areas that are meaningful to us. Together goals, meaning, and purpose can help us put our long-term vision in action.

The author is Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. Learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

Sri Lanka is currently going through an extreme economic crisis. Foreign exchange reserves have fallen so low that school examinations have been indefinitely postponed due to a lack of imported paper. In addition to cooking gas, there has been a shortage of kerosene and petrol. Blackout has started due to a lack of electricity.

Due to inflation, high unemployment, and shortages of almost all necessities, many Sri Lankans are fleeing the country in the hope of a better life abroad. Countless Sri Lankans are now being forced to do something other than their main occupation as not everyone can afford to leave.

The country has never been in such a bad situation since its independence in 1947. To cope, the Sri Lankan government has asked for a new loan of $1.5bn from neighboring India. When Sri Lanka faced problems, Bangladesh provided $250m in currency assistance. This was the first loan from Bangladesh for any country. Sri Lanka has been repaying loans of different countries with goods not money.

Sri Lanka had good enough human resources and prosperity. Then what prompted the crisis?

The country has undertaken several mega projects in recent times. These include seaports, airports, roads, and other projects considered unnecessary. Different governments of Sri Lanka have taken loans from different sources both at home and abroad. As a result, their foreign exchange reserves gradually dried out. There has been little foreign direct investment in Sri Lanka in the past 15 years. Instead, various governments have focused on borrowing.

The country’s government has been issuing sovereign bonds to raise money since 2007. These sovereign bonds are sold in international capital markets when expenditures exceed incomes. That is what Sri Lanka has done without thinking of how the money would be paid. At present, Sri Lanka has a debt of $12.5bn just in bonds. Besides, the government has also borrowed from domestic sources.

The once-self-sufficient country is also in dire straits due to tax cuts, reduced income from tourism and remittance, and ad hocism in agriculture.

The global economic climate has begun to change rapidly since the Russia-Ukraine war and, just like Sri Lanka, any country could fall into a new crisis.

Pakistan’s economy is also in turmoil, with its debts amounting to $130bn. Its inflation is now around 12 percent. The country’s recent political unrest has shaken business and industrial sectors. The economy was already fragile due to the depreciation of the rupee, declining reserves, rising commodity prices, and revenue shortfalls.

Not only has the currency depreciated, but the wheels of Pakistan’s economy have also slowed over the past three years.  

During Imran Khan’s premiership, there was an increase in debt, inflation, and a record fall in the value of the Pakistani currency.

In contrast, Bangladesh is currently South Asia’s development poster child. Big projects are being implemented. Development has reached villages. Most roads in the capital have flyovers and soon there will be a metro system. The Padma bridge is no longer a dream. Economists reckon the GDP growth rate could increase by a percent after the bridge’s construction. The implementation of such a mammoth project with the government’s own funding was at one time unimaginable.

The present government in Bangladesh has shown prudence and foresight. Hundred new economic zones are being formed. Investment is streaming in. Foreign exchange reserves are adequate ($45bn), and remittances are satisfactory. Bangladesh has strong economic foundations. The foreign exchange reserve will meet its import cost for six months. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, has less than $2bn, which is not enough to sustain even a fortnight’s imports.

Sri Lanka has seen unnecessary development projects backed by loans. The organic agriculture sector has come to a standstill and the public welfare system has been trimmed.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Bangladesh’s growth slowed down but it was still respectable compared to what we see in the rest of the world.

Bangladesh is a miracle story while Sri Lanka and Pakistan are disaster tales.

The author is a researcher and strategic and international affairs analyst. He has a Master’s degree in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University